


A Schientist's Mind

by notthehighkingedmund



Category: Starship - Team StarKid
Genre: Ableist Language, Learning to Dance, Mentions of surgery, Sexist Language, Sexual Slavery, fanfic-ception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 02:11:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7247938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthehighkingedmund/pseuds/notthehighkingedmund
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>February isn't as unintelligent and vain as she seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dumb Blonde

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a blend of my own personal headcanons and backstories for February (including her last name and family), with amagicbeyond's fic Learning To Dance.

Dumb. That was what they called her.  
She was used to it - they weren't the first. Her middle school teacher had told her that it just seemed strange for such a pretty thing to be so smart.  
She was a pretty blonde, who happened to enjoy the ultra feminine: clothes, shoes, shopping, trying out a new hairstyle each season, makeup. What no one else got was that she was vastly interested in science.

Chemistry had always intrigued her, ever since she was a little girl. Granted, she'd taken that interest because she had seen how pretty it could be - and what pretty things could be made from it. But then it became more than that. She had become fascinated by how it worked, and what she could do or make just simply by mixing a few different materials.

That quickly led to a fascination with biology and, more importantly, how these different materials and chemicals could affect different bodies. Physics had never been a strong suit, or an interest. Sure, space was cool and she liked it, but there was no desire to know why it was the way it was - no real itch to know all there was to know about the stars. It confused her and took away the magic and mystery of the world. Made simple things like how a chair would topple if you leant to far back, complex. It made the fun - like rockets and space travel - boring.

Someone had once said that it was rare for a scientist to truly love and dedicate their life to all three fields. February was happy to settle for two out of three.  
Besides, she wanted to be a doctor. You didn't need a degree in some kind of physics to help people and save lives.  
Not in the career that February was aiming for.

But she was a pretty little blonde, who was often surrounded by flirting boys (and the occasional girl, which she found flattering). The girl who was often seen giggling and smiling at some joke or compliment a boy had whispered to her.  
So that's how people treated her.  
For a while she fought it - actively spouting some random equation she'd been reading up on, or telling her insulter what damage their choice of meal or alcohol would do to their body should they keep consuming it.

People continued to laugh. Dumb little February - at least she was pretty, right?  
Real trophy wife material.  
She was 14 when someone had told her that. Her mothers had had to calm her down over a video call that evening - January chiming in that he'd kick every jerk's ass for her when they came to visit that summer.

It didn't matter to anyone on Earth that February had gotten into that school. The school that was designed to speed up the medical school process for those that were planning on becoming Starship Rangers. Only exceptionally smart kids got into that school.  
Yet February was still seen as dumb, even by fellow students and professors that didn't even teach her. No one could see past the blonde hair or the pretty face.

Because, of course, no one that pretty could be smart enough to be a doctor.


	2. An Eventful Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> February meets possibly the worst human she'd ever met, and goes to a ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events of the ball all come from amagicbeyond's fic Learning To Dance. I seriously recommend reading it before this.

After graduating and getting her doctorate - at 18 - February had hoped that maybe, just maybe, people would start to recognise her as an intelligent woman.  
But nothing changed. Now she was just a dumb blonde with a doctorate. Somehow, nothing she did seemed to prove how smart she truly was.  
Not wanting to let that keep her down, February had taken her entrance exam for the Academy (and passed) and decided to travel to the nearest planet while she waited until it was time to leave.  
She'd expected a month or so on a new planet to take in the culture, before hopping into a ship and going to further her training.

Far from it. Within two days of arriving on the planet, February was accosted in a street market by a creepy man, asking how much she was worth. Disgusted, the woman had told him she wasn't for sale and tried to carry on. This didn't work out very well, as an alien nearby had heard the whole thing and rushed over to her. He was acting as if she'd run away from him and was scolding her for 'almost losing him a lot of money'.  
His best product, he called her.

Well, this led to the stranger paying a large amount of money to have her as a bride.  
She fought, for about two weeks, before she was beaten down for not acting like the girl she was meant to be.  
A vapid, fashion obsessed, and unintelligent piece of arm candy for this man.  
So she started acting that way - only to keep from being hurt any further.

 

It turned out her fiancé/owner was one of a big name (one she'd quickly forgotten - giving him a name meant he really was a person that was doing this) and that meant certain things were required of him. And by extension, of her.  
Like attending parties and balls. Acting like she genuinely loved this man and could not wait for her wedding day. The day which loomed closer, like a radiation that slowly spread through the body, until one day your organs were failing and you were dying on the floor.

 

So there she was, 18 years old, at a big fancy ball she'd only read about - expected to be the most vain and dim woman in the room.  
No one there knew she took pleasure in cutting people open and rooting around in their organs for a problem to fix.  
And so she took her role and threw herself into it. She found herself seated by a beautiful couple, and so she took it upon herself to annoy and pester her neighbours all evening about various fashion and makeup tips.

She felt slightly bad for Phillipa - who clearly wanted to be anywhere but there - but if she was forced to be there, then this rich wife could deal with it.  
Despite her slight hatred of everyone in the room, Phillipa and her husband seemed nice... She felt safe talking to them.

By the end of the evening it was proven to her why she'd felt so safe around the pair: they were Rangers. Undercover Rangers.  
And there she was, on a balcony full of dead men, with a gun to her neck.  
Did every man she came across think that they could just throw her about all they wanted? Just because she was pretty.

Her eyes drifted over to the Rangers who were both unarmed and looking for a solution, and they then dropped to the ground before them. To the spiky stilettos that Philipa (or whatever her name really was) was wearing. An object with a small surface area, and a lot of force behind it...  
See, she wasn't hopeless at physics.

"Phillipa, girlfriend." Her voice shook - she was scared and it was showing. "Three and a quarter inches is totally deadly, right?”

There was a flash of recognition in the woman's face and then a stiletto heel had buried itself into her captor.  
And a man who paid good money for her rounded the corner and took away the potential for a cry for help.  
(Philipa was suggesting she become a Starship Ranger. Oh, if only she knew the truth...)  
So she kept playing dumb - calling upon an old inside joke to make herself seem really stupid.

She hadn't said 'schience' in quite a few years...


	3. The Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big day has finally arrived! February's getting married.

Never again would she actively set out to hurt another.  
February had quite loudly protested the use of zappers or fighting in her Academy training. This set her progress back considerably. It affected her final score.  
It meant she had come last in her class.  
(Way to prove your intelligence, February...)  
Fortunately she practically aced her exams, and they were willing to make the exception to let her through without combat training.

At least, they had once she'd broken down crying and told her professor of her wedding day.  
It was possibly the worst day of her life. Forced into a pretty white gown - not even the right kind for her body type, or something she'd have ever picked out - and practically shoved down the aisle, February had broken.  
She was never a rough girl. Didn't much enjoy getting injured or dirty if she didn't have to - and she hated to hurt others. That was why she was a doctor wasn't it? To heal and save lives... 

But as she stood by this old man, being asked if she took his hand, February took something else instead. A gun from the nearest bodyguard, and then her fiancé's life with a shot to the head.  
It was an out of body experience - like she wasn't even there, yet she saw it all happen in front of her.  
Screaming, fighting - blood. So much blood. And bodies.  
Bodies she'd shot.

She was dimly aware of how she aimed the gun at a man who was running at her. Where she'd learnt to aim so precisely, she didn't know.  
Perhaps it was a skill that was transferable from surgery.  
The next thing she knew the trigger was pulled and blood hit her face. When had he gotten so close?

Everything was in slow motion, except for her - though she felt as if she were moving through water.  
It was like a nightmare.  
A dreadful, bloody, nightmare.  
All around her people were running and screaming - some more guards were coming at her, so she simply ran and jumped over dead bodies.

Her fiancé, his bodyguards, and a little girl who'd gotten caught in the crossfire.  
Dropping the gun that had ended an innocent child's life, February ran as fast as she could out of the ornate hall - not caring that her dress was ripped, dirty and splattered with blood.  
Eventually she came across help and was smuggled onto the first ship that could take her away and to her intended destination.

She was never asked to hold a gun or spar with anyone after that admission.  
And she was a Starship Ranger.  
She'd gotten her dream.  
Some dream.


	4. Dumbest Doctor Onboard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things were supposed to be easier in G.L.E.E, right?

While she didn't have any actual mission assignments, February spent her time in the infirmary and labs, doing all she could to learn more and help the hurt.  
It was there that she heard tales of other Rangers - of the fearsome Commander Up and his dangerous Lieutenant Taz. It was there that she also discovered that her act of playing dumb was not over.

She'd thought that now she was safe and a Ranger, she'd be respected and treated as the smart woman she was.  
That wasn't the case. There was only one other doctor that accepted that the pretty blonde girl could be a doctor too. And a dead goddamn good one at that.  
And so, so tired of fighting, February slipped effortlessly back into the dumb persona she'd adopted for survival.

She'd even taken to using her ridiculous way of introducing herself that she had used when she was five - and then again at the ball.  
"Hi, I'm February - like the month, but a person!"  
All chipper and beaming, as if everyone she met was the most exciting person she'd ever come across.  
Dead God forbid she seem moody or unapproachable.  
The only emotions she got to show were extremely upbeat happiness, or inconsolable sadness. But she could only be sad about trivial matters.  
Like her shoe breaking, or her skirt getting messy. Not that she missed her family, or that she hated who she'd become.  
Using some bullshit line about needing more wardrobe room, and the promise of a date or two, February had managed to convince a couple guys to give her their room.  
That way no one knew about her nightmares.

No one saw her remove the mask of February, the perky doctor who shouldn't have been allowed in the programme, and slump into February - the broken and beaten woman who was exhausted.  
This wasn't what she'd expected when she'd joined the Rangers...

Eventually, she started to forget that she was smart. The front had become so constant and so easy to fall into, that one night she sat on her bed wondering where she'd disappeared.  
She didn't recognise the blonde in her mirror as being herself, but she couldn't be rid of the stranger.  
A woman who looked just like her, who's head was filled with nothing but facts about things that could only serve to make her prettier.


End file.
